Jessica Winters

Jessica Winters is an emerging Inuk artist and curator from Nunatsiavut (Labrador). Her paintings draw upon vivid memories, intense curiosity and lived experiences detailing deep connections to place and community. Winters says, “my work is a deeply profound response to my culture, my family and the land that nurtures us.”

Winters was as a coordinating curator for the 2021 Bonavista Biennale special exhibition Regeneration / Piguttaugiallavalliajuk / Ussanitauten, and returns to the 2023 iteration of the Biennale as a featured artist. Her commissioned mural, Hopedale, addresses the idea of host by celebrating the land and people that build the foundation of home, the space that provides a depth of sustenance, responsibility and enduring connections. 

Hopedale is jointly commissioned by Bonavista Biennale, the Inuit Art Foundation, Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq / Pijariuqsarniq Project, and Onsite Gallery at OCAD University, where it will also be presented in winter 2024.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jessica Winters was raised in Makkovik, Labrador, and grew up surrounded by art and craft. Her family’s matriarch, her grandmother Nellie Winters, made a living through art and craft, and has recently received an honorary doctorate from Memorial University for her contributions to Inuit art. Despite attending residential school and being forced to relocate south, she has passed down her creativity and traditional knowledge to many of her 11 children and generations of grandchildren.

Jessica Winters pursued post-secondary studies in biology, but continued to develop her artistic skills, learning traditional craft forms from her family, and eventually teaching herself  to paint. In 2021, Winters was the first recipient of the Arts and Minds Canada Tilting Invitational Artist in Residency Award. Following this residency, Winters left the sciences and moved to St. John’s to focus on her painting practice full-time. In 2022,  Winters was named one of three Canadian recipients of the Hnatyshyn Foundation’s Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, St. John’s; Yukon Arts Center, Whitehorse; J.K. Contemporary, Fogo Island, NL; and Art Gallery of Guelph, ON.